


Different Worlds

by TrioMaxwell



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Matsuoka Rin's Parents - Freeform, Mikoshiba's Parents, Passive bullying, Pre High Speed AU, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrioMaxwell/pseuds/TrioMaxwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or the one where Mikoshiba and Rin attended the same elementary school. With a twist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'll See You Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
> OOCness alert! You won't recognize the characters. But then, they are only ten years old. Descriptions of child abuse, suicide ideation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, one friend is all you need.
> 
> Character A comes from an abusive, alcoholic, or otherwise broken home, and are often seen as no good by teachers, neighbors, and another adults; Character B comes from a seemingly perfect world— loving, well-off parents, lots of friends, many talents, possibly some siblings.
> 
> Or the AU where Mikoshiba Seijuurou and Matsuoka Rin attended the same grade school... with a twist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is a combination of two prompts. 
> 
> 1) Prompt 1: this photo http://triomaxwell.tumblr.com/post/81168892343/the-cosmic-life-i-bet-that-if-two-kids-lived-in
> 
> Of course, the roof is longer, slightly further apart and better lit in my head. 
> 
> 2) Prompt 2: Character A comes from an abusive, alcoholic, or otherwise broken home, and are often seen as no good by teachers, neighbors, and another adults; Character B comes from a seemingly perfect world— loving, well-off parents, lots of friends, many talents, possibly some siblings.

 

"YOU STUPID FUCKING USELESS PIECE OF SHIT!” Mikoshiba Seijuurou’s head snapped to the side as his father backhanded him across the right side of his face, red and yellow stars exploding across his vision like the fireworks he had once seen on New Year's Eve. He lost his balance and his head caromed off the wall, his vision blacking out for a moment, his body falling to the dirty, unswept floor. His head hit the floor chin-first, his teeth clacking painfully together. By some miracle, he hadn’t bitten his tongue in two.  

 

“Don’t mark him!” His mother screeched from her sanctuary by the sofa, as he lay there, dazed. “Welfare Services will be back on our case again if you mark him as badly as you did the last time!”

 “SHUT UP BITCH!” His father screamed at her, saliva flying from his mouth, chugging one last mouth of beer before flinging the empty can at her. His mother sullenly obeyed as she always had, turning back to her ten o’clock soap on the television, turning up the volume to drown out the sounds of her (alcoholic, violent) husband interacting with (hitting, abusing) their ten-year old son. Maybe the neighbours would think they were just watching a really bad sitcom where the families always screamed and fought. Seijuurou felt a rough hand grab his collar chokingly tight, yank him up till his toes scraped the floor. Seijuurou tried to hang as limp as possible, to look small and pathetic, so that his father would be satisfied, and maybe, not hit him anymore. If he gave the faintest inkling of defiance, his father would use the belt, or worse, the burns.

 

“Your teacher’s been saying that your homework’s not been done, you stupid punk, and that you’re falling behind,” his father hissed into his face (and Sei imagined green fumes of fetid poisonous breath escaping from his father’s snarling mouth, his lanky, grey-black hair turning into snakes and horns and his rheumy brown eyes turn slit-pupil and hell-fire red). “You’re last in class of the _fucking_ last class. You’re in danger of being _retained again, she says_ ,” his father shook him like a rag doll, and Sei whimpered as the throbbing in his head increased ten-fold. “Let me tell you this, you worthless piece of shit, you’ve already been retained once. If you get retained again, you just drop out of school. There’s no point in paying good money just to keep you in school and you’re going to be nothing but a _fucking_ social parasite anyway. You better make sure this is the last complain call I get from your teacher, you better make sure you pass this time and you better make sure you don’t give anymore fucking trouble for anyone or you might as well do us all a favour and go just fucking kill yourself. DO YOU HEAR ME?” 

 

“Yes, Daddy,” Sei whimpered, honestly apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

 

Those words infuriated the man even more; His collar twisted tighter and Sei mewled as his air was cut off. He was suddenly thrust against the wall and pinned there. “Ice your face before it bruises and get out of my sight.” His father growled and released his grip on Sei, turning away, (muttering something under his breath but Sei heard him loud and clear anyway, over the roaring in his ears) even before the boy hit the floor.

 

Sei lay there, stunned and trembling, his father’s last words echoing in his ears. _Stupid worthless piece of shit._

 

His father and mother started screaming at each other, over whose ( _bloody, fucking_ ) fault it was ( _your problem, not mine, not mine_ ) that the ( _stupid, worthless_ ) boy was having trouble in school.

 

Sei picked himself off the floor slowly, placed his hand against the wall for support as the living room swam giddily in his eyes and his parents’ voices skrilled gratingly in counterpoint with the drums in his head.

 

_Stupid worthless piece of shit._

 

\--------------------------

 

Seijuurou lay awake in bed, not daring to move, until the house subsided into silence and he was sure his parental units were no longer awake. He glanced at the clock. Two a.m. in the morning. He removed the (now warm) pack of frozen peas that he had filched from the fridge for his face and gingerly felt the damaged areas in the dark, fingers exploring like a blind man trying to learn his own face. He hadn’t dared to turn the lights on to look in the mirror when he had first retreated to his room, and now he fervently hoped that he wouldn’t look too bad in the morning. The parts of his head that had hit the wall and the floor didn’t seem to hurt anymore but his right cheek felt mushy, like last week’s bruised apples _. Oh no._ People in school would stare. Teachers would shake their heads in disappointment at him. No good kid, always getting into trouble outside school. Parents would tell their children to stay away from him as he crept into school from across the parking lot, he’s no good, that one, you hear me? _(you might as well do us all a favour and go just fucking kill yourself)_ Yes, daddy. Yes, mommy.

 

He pressed four fingers into the bruise that would surely be there in the morning and felt a rush of pain (and shame) so strong that he threw himself onto the bed (like how his father had let him drop on the floor like he was worthless), feverishly whispering to himself, “You stupid fucking useless piece of shit, you’re in trouble now, you bloody fucking useless brat.”

 

His chest hurt and the room was too small, too stuffy, unable to contain the cries and the tears that had been hammering around inside of him. If his father was awoken from where he lay in sloshed sleep from across the corridor, and took the trouble to enter his room, he’d get hit again. Phantom pain blossomed across his face and stars swam across his vision at the thought.

 

Blinded, gasping, overcome with fear, Seijuurou fled to the window. He fumbled with the lock and climbed out onto the moonlit roof into the cold air outside.

\--------------------------

 

Seijuurou sat on the roof just beneath his window, hugging his knees to his bare chest, muffling his sobs and cries into his balled-up shirt. The crying caused his head to hurt more, but the tears just wouldn’t stop.

 

Before today, it hadn’t really mattered to him if he left school or stayed.

 

Yes, he had had a reason to leave his (hell) house but school wasn’t much of a sanctuary either. School meant slinking through the school yard in frayed jeans that were more dirt-gray than blue, a sloppy shirt almost threadbare from being washed too may times, and a black hoodie jacket he would draw up like an elven cloak to hide the bruises on his face that his longish hair couldn't cover. It meant facing the gauntlet of noisy corridors, trying to get from one end to another without attracting attention. It was playing the invisible card, feeling gut-wrenchingly anxious when any attention was given to him, turning away to hide the bruises beneath his bright red hair (because he couldn’t pull up the hood in class), till it became a full-blown habit and his teachers whispered / suspected that he might be autistic or even intellectually disabled.

It was facing the frustrated and pitying looks of teachers who chided him about his non-existent books and homework in varying levels of volume. He couldn’t hand in his work because he had no textbooks or workbooks; his father had never bought any for him, never given him lunch money so he could save up for them (he always lied that he had forgotten _all_ of his books at home and his teachers assumed he had lost/ thrown them away to get out of studying. _Can’t even take care of himself, much less his things_ ). His patched and frayed backpack was only for show anyway, containing only school notifications and the odd worksheet kept in a scavenged shoebox to make it look not-so-empty from the outside. Whenever he saw his current teacher talk to the teacher from the previous grade, he would look away because he couldn’t stand to see them both turn to him with the _oh-so-he’s-like-that_ look in their eyes. He had a couple of scavenged pencils and eraser stubs that his classmates had thrown away but they could still be used so he tried to copy facts and answers off the board on the clean bits of paper behind the school notifications, but it was getting harder and harder to keep up with lessons and he was losing his way in class. He wasn’t doing well in a class filled with ne’er-do-wells and wasn’t that just saying something. It really was a waste of everyone’s time.

And friends… school was like watching television in a way, everyone was laughing and interacting and he was watching from behind a glass screen that extended all the way around him; they couldn’t see or speak to him (except for the older boys, when they tripped him in the hallways for a laugh).

 

Now, his father had told him to do well in school or to get rid of himself…  forever. He keened quietly, gripping his shoulders, rocking from side to side, mourning the choices left to him. School was impossible. So many classes, so many tests, so little help, so little hope. That left… _that_. It would be so much easier than passing, in fact, as easy as rolling off this roof, wouldn’t it? No, he wouldn’t succeed at this height. Maybe if he took care to land on his head…? No, he couldn’t fail the first attempt and have his father pay for his hospital bills. He should find a higher roof instead.

 

“Hey, are you alright? You’ve been crying non-stop for the past fifteen minutes.”

 

Sei flung himself away from the hand that had suddenly materialized itself at his shoulder. _It’s Father! Get away!_ His mind screamed incoherently with images of demon eyes and hell’s breath and he scrambled backwards and for a terrifying moment, he stepped over the ledge of the roof, and the world tilted and Sei was weightless. Noooo, this was not the higher roof, he had screwed up, nooooo.

 

Two small but strong arms wrapped themselves around his waist and yanked him back onto the roof. Sei landed on his side, on something (someone) that was soft, smelled nice, and yelped in discomfort as they hit the tiles with a muffled clatter.

 

Seijuurou and the soft, nice smelling person hugged each other, trembling for a moment. Sei closed his eyes and felt his heart flutter in his chest like a trapped hummingbird and he thought that if he opened his mouth, it might fly out into the night sky. He felt small hands start pushing at him, and a loud whisper, “You have to get off me now!”

 

Sei disengaged his arms, still trembling, and looked down. He saw a boy, about his age, very pretty, with chin length red hair splayed out on the tiles beneath him and red eyes that sparkled with stars. He was dressed in a white ankle length nightgown and Seijuurou thought he might be an angel, except that there were no wings.

 

“Oh God, oh God! Did you see that?” The boy whispered loudly, sounding awed. “I thought we were going to die! Thank God we’re all right!” The boy sat up, rubbing at his arms as if to confirm his own safe-and-soundness. He looked at Sei worriedly. “Did I freak you out? I’m sorry, ok?”

 

Could angels be afraid of dying too? Sei sat back on his heels and rubbed his right elbow absently, having landed on it.

 

“Hey, are you alright? Dude! Answer me!” Sei’s view was suddenly unobstructed as a warm hand gently pushed his shaggy fringe up and the boy was looking at him straight in the face.

 

Sei opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been asked if he was okay before. He hurt all over, and he had a tall building to locate, but it seemed irrelevant to the situation right now.

 

A hand brushed against his bruised cheek, feather-light. “Hey dude, you’re hurt!”

 Sei jerked his head to the side, just enough that his hair fell forward to partially hide the bruise. “I just… fell down,” he murmured defensively.

 

“Should we wake your parents up? They need to see it!” The boy peered into his dark house and made as if to climb in through Sei’s window to pound on his parents’ door.

 

Sei shook his head desperately, “No, wait! Stop!” The boy turned back to look at him with wide eyes. “I don’t want to bother them.” Sei said urgently, desperately hoping that the boy would understand.

 

The boy frowned at him. “Then, wait here a moment,” The boy floated across the two roofs and climbed into what apparently was his window and disappeared into the room. After a while, he climbed out and floated back, a small box in his hand. It was a first aid kid. The boy extracted a tube of ointment from it, held it up daintily to check the name. “Push your hair back,” he ordered. “I’ll apply some cream to your cheek, to let it get better sooner.”

 

“It’ll get better on it’s own. Don’t waste it on me,” Sei felt awkward on many counts; for receiving help, for making the nice boy worry, for feeling that there was no need to fix a broken thing (him). The image of the tall rooftop wavered in his mind.

 

“What? Are you kidding me?” The boy hissed, drew himself up in a theatrical fashion. Sei attended to the boy with fascination. “This tube of medicine,” ( _he brandished it up to the sky like it was the philosopher’s stone)_ “has got but one purpose, and that’s,” ( _a hand swept dramatically to point at Sei)_ “to heal people who are injured. And _you_ ,” ( _cue repeated stabbing actions with the pointed hand_ ) “are an injured person. It can’t help you by staying in the tube.” The boy’s voice returned to normal. “Now get over here. Or do I have to go over there?”

 

Sei meekly allowed the smaller boy to boss him, applying the cool cream with gentle fingers to his face and arm. He wondered if the cream could be applied to the round circular burn marks on the backs of his legs too. He kept quiet and shook his head when the boy asked if he was hurt anywhere else.

 

“We go to the same school, don’t we?” The boy spoke up, putting the cream back into the box neatly. “Sano Elementary. I’ve seen you around.”

 

Sei stiffened, throat and shoulders locking up at the thought of school.

 

The boy looked up at him and smiled. “My name is Matsuoka Rin. You can call me Rin. What’s your name?”

 

Sei stared at the beautiful boy with the friendly smile. He had heard of Matsuoka Rin before, though this was the first time he had seen him. He was the top student in class 4A, the top class in the level, and one of the most popular, well-liked boys in the school, the teachers’ darling. He sang well, he could draw, he had won awards in track and swimming. In other words, he was a person at the opposite end of the social spectrum from Seijuurou.

 

Seijuurou stared at Rin in awe and dismay. It was as if he was recognizing that the boy in front of him had been the mythical unicorn in the fairy tales all along, while the boy had yet to recognize Sei as the warty toad who had to hide forever under a stone.

 

Rin hesitated at Sei's silence, worried. “I just want to be friends, since we’re already neighbours. It’s tough being the only boy in my home. It’d be nice to hang out like this, do things together, right? Unless…” the boy trailed off uncertainly. “You don’t want to?”

 

Sei didn’t understand so many things. What did friends do? What did hanging out mean? Did it require money? Sei wouldn’t be much of a friend if it did. And if the Rin had seen him in school before, surely he had heard of him too? Maybe, if Rin knew who he really was (the worthless, no good kid), he would have the same expression on his face as his teachers. _The same expression as his father._

 

He looked up at Rin, who had been keeping quiet, watching him, half-asleep, chin-in-hand. He jerked to attention when Sei finally mumbled, “Mikoshiba Seijuurou. You can call me Sei for short.”

 

“Seijuurou? That’s a really nice name,” Rin said with a trace of envy.

 

“It is?” Sei blinked. Nobody had ever said that before. He felt a little giddy at the thought of owning something that other people thought was 'nice'.

 

“Yeah! It’s full of manly spirit.” Rin pounded on his chest and saluted to illustrate. “Unlike mine. Everyone assumes I’m a girl when they first hear it.” Rin grinned. “There’s a story behind that though. I might tell it to you one day.” Rin’s voice cracked on the last two words and his hands flew to cover his mouth as he yawned widely.

 

The yawn must have been contagious, because Sei yawned widely then, too. Rin giggled at the coincidence, and then leaned forward to grab Sei’s hands. “It’s been nice meeting you, Sei-kun! I think we better get back to bed. I’ll see you in school tomorrow, ok?”

 

The warmth of Rin’s hands on his was very nice. It was like petting wriggly puppies, getting a question right in class and hot miso soup. He wanted to get used to this kind of warm touch that did not hurt. And maybe… he did not want to find the tall rooftop tomorrow after all. _Yeah. No tall rooftops._

 

He shifted his hands so that they were palm up, cradling Rin’s smaller hands in his. He shook his shaggy fringe away so he could see Rin's face, look him in the eyes.

 

“Yeah. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

\--------------------------------

 

END of Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m struggling with writer’s block for Heartbreaker, Carpe Diem, etc. The words are not flowing right, so I cope by… writing a new and totally unrelated AU. 
> 
> It hurts to write this, but my genre is … ‘it will all be alright in the end’. So far. (But it will get worse before it gets better)


	2. Pain, Pain, Fly Away!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walking to school with the Matsuoka siblings the next day.

Sei woke up to his darkened room with a start. He lay there for a moment, sheets tangled around him, staring at the ceiling. There was a really unfamiliar sound in his room. The sound of insistent rapping on... his window? He sat up quickly, stiff and bleary eyed, and hurried over anxiously to see what the ruckus was about. If his father’s rest was disturbed, there would be hell to pay for sure. He squeaked when he saw red eyes in the backlighted shadow staring through the window, before realizing they belonged to the boy next door.

 

_Matsuoka Rin. What is he doing here? What does he want?_

 

The boy smiled and waved cheerfully at Sei through the glass. Sei pushed up the window and almost fell over backwards at the cheerful “Good morning!” that came through.

 

“Shhhhh!” he hushed the boy, eyes darting anxiously to his parents' door, hoping that no one else in the house had heard him.  

 

Rin’s hands flew to his mouth belatedly. “Hey,” he whispered through his fingers.

 

“Hey,” Sei whispered back, still listening intently for any sound from his parents’ room. _Good, there's no sound; his parents were not awake._  He turned to the boy. "What are you doing here?" He whispered.

 

"Er, do you want to walk to school together? With my sister and me?"

 

“Huh?” _Did he come over just to ask me that?_ “Uh, sure.”

 

"Yes!" Rin grinned, as though walking to school with Seijuurou was something to be cheerful about. "That's great! I'll meet you downstairs. How long do you need?"

 

Sei glanced at the clock. "Fifteen minutes?"

 

"Sure! See you then," Rin smiled and waved before scampering over the roofs to his window, where he climbed in and disappeared.

 

 _What a strange boy,_ Sei thought as he closed the window. He cast a last glance out as he turned to leave. For some reason, the after-image of the boy with the smile remained in his mind.

 

He picked up a pair of two day old jeans and checked it for stains. Finding none, he pulled them on and secured the waist with a belt, absently noting that he could cinch the belt tighter by a notch compared to three weeks ago. He looked down at his jeans, feeling a little worried. They were supposed to be his longest pair, but lately, the tops of his shoes were starting to show. He didn't look forward to telling his parents he would need new clothes soon. 

 

Sei splashed water on his face and gargled his mouth, spitting into the sink. He studied his face in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. Most of the ointment had come off in the night but the colour of the bruise did look better for being only twelve hours old compared to the ones received previously. It hurt less too. He wiped at the bruise carefully with a damp cloth and arranged his hair carefully to hide what he could of it. The bruise could still be seen, but what could he do?

 

He got his bag quietly and crept downstairs to the kitchen. He sighed when he spied the loaf of bread on the counter, relieved, and opened the fridge to get the butter. Sometimes his parents would forget the bread, and he couldn’t have breakfast. He wolfed down four slices of bread and butter and felt better. He was still hungry, but dared not take more.

 

Breakfast concluded, he quietly left the house.

 

Rin was waiting outside his house, talking quietly to a little girl. They both turned as Sei approached them, and Sei marveled at the matching red hair and eyes of the sibling duo.

 

"Hi!" Rin waved to him cheerfully. He spoke to Gou gently, trying to dislodge her from where she was hiding behind him. "Hey, come out, Gou. This is my friend, Mikoshiba Seijuurou-kun. Mikoshiba-kun, this is my sister, Matsuoka Gou. She's in third grade."

 

"Hello. Nice to meet you," Sei said, trying to smile. "Gou-san?"

 

The little girl looked out at him shyly. She said something softly and Sei tilted his head, trying to hear what she had said. “Sorry, could you repeat that one more time?”

 

“Doesn't your face hurt?” Sei’s hand flew up to cover his bruised cheek and Gou mirrored his action, looking like she felt the pain as well. “That looks really painful. Onii-chan!” she tugged on her brother’s arm. “Can you make the pain fly away?”

 

Rin patted the little girl on the head as he looked at Seijuurou thoughtfully. “I’ll see what I can do! Wait!” He rummaged about in his bag and took out... a band-aid. "Tadah!" He approached Sei as he broke the seal, and with gentle fingers, smoothed the band-aid onto Sei’s cheek to hide the bruise. “Pain, pain, fly away!” He chanted, and Gou raised her hands as though releasing birds into the sky.

 

"Uh," Sei stared at their antics. _Was it supposed to do something?_

 

"It's a magic spell for when you're hurt," Rin whispered to Seijuurou. "We do it all the time in our home."

 

Sei blinked, unsure as to how to feel. He scratched his cheek, feeling the outline of the unfamiliar addition to his face. It felt like the band-aid on the bruise called more attention to himself. Rin seemed to be aware of his discomfort because he took out another band-aid and stuck it onto his own face. “Tadah~!” He smiled at Sei and raised his fingers in a 'V' sign. “Now we match!”

 

Gou tugged on her brother’s arm, "Onii-chan, Gou wants one too!"

 

Sei didn’t know what to think of these two children, they who tried to fix broken things on their own and the ones who pretended to be broken too, so that he wouldn't have to be alone.

 

“Here, Seijuurou-san!” Gou took out a book from her own bag. She peeled a sticker off and stuck it on Sei’s face (“Gently, Gou!” Rin cautioned her), right on the band-aid. She repeated the same with Rin, who laughed and did the same for her affectionately. Gou pulled out a small mirror for Sei and Rin to see themselves. The mirror wasn't big enough for them to see their entire faces so Rin crowded in close, almost cheek to cheek with Sei. In the mirror, Sei saw a golden star with a smiley face stuck onto Rin's band-aid and the same golden smiley stuck onto his.“Now, all of us look really nice!” She declared cheerfully.

 

"Yeah, we do, don't we?" Rin said, evidently satisfied with the Matsuoka handiwork. He ruffled Gou's hair. "Good job! Well done! Come on, let's go to school!"

 

Sei fell into the place they left for him, walking side by side with the siblings. He reached across his chest as though to heft the backpack more securely in place but let his fist press firmly to the left side of his chest. It hurt there, but felt warm.

 

How strange was it, Sei thought, that the band-aid had been placed on his cheek, but felt as though it had been carefully placed over a crack on his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pain pain, fly away!  
> I've seen this in manga, where adults chant this over scraped knees of little kids and such. It's supposed to make the pain go away (or something).  
> 痛いの痛いの飛んでけ （いたいのいたいのとんでけ）  
> Romaji: Itai no itai no tondeke or "itai itai deteke"  
> "itai" means "pain" or "ouch", and "itai-itai" is like, "ouch-ouch".  
> "deteke" is a rude way of saying "get out!" while "tondeke" means to fly away.  
> I don't think Seijuurou ever had these words spoken to him before. 
> 
> Sorry for the long wait. I was busy with exams and life. But I am back~!  
> I hope you enjoyed it. ^_^ (Do tell me if there are any inconsistencies, though.)


	3. If you want to be worth something, you've got to work for it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words that changed a life.

The bell rang for lunch break. Sei hung back so that he wouldn't have to walk to the lunch hall with the rest of the children and went to escape quietly to the back of the school garden as usual. He hadn't counted on bumping into Rin in the corridor, However.

 

"Hello, Seijuurou!" Rin greeted him cheerfully. 

 

"Hi, Rin." Sei saw that he still sported the band-aid on his face.

 

"Aren't you going to get anything to eat?" Rin tagged behind Sei as he walked out to the courtyard. 

 

"No, I'm not hungry," Sei replied. He didn't have lunch money, but Rin didn't need to know that.  

 

Rin spied some children playing basketball on the court. “Hey, my classmates are playing there. Wanna join in?”

 

Sei looked over. He sighed. “I can’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

 _That's not a group I can join._ "I don't know how to play."

 

“You think too much, Seijuurou! Join in if you want to! Do you want to?” He looked closer at Sei's face. "You do, don't you? Then, come on!" He grabbed Sei by the hand and dragged him over to the court. “Hey guys, let us play too!” (Sei saw that some of them sported bandaids on their faces and arms...  with stickers on them. Apparently, Rin had started some sort of trend in his class.) "So whose team are we in?"

 

The boy holding the ball had been about to pass, but he paused, looking uncertainly at his peers. Some of the children surreptitiously shook their heads. Decision made, the boy spoke to Rin apologetically, “Ah, no, Matsuoka-kun. Our game is over. We’re going back to class now.”

 

The children filtered back to the classrooms, whispering and glancing at Rin and Sei, shaking their heads and whispering some more. Rin looked dismayed as his they walked away. He scuffed the toe of one shoe in the ground. Seijuurou thought that if Rin had puppy dog ears, they would be drooping. Rin suddenly looked up. “Hey, wait!” He yelled, running after the departing children. Ran away, leaving Sei alone on the court.

 

Sei turned away so that he wouldn't see Rin running back to to his friends. _It's okay_. He told himself. _It's okay._

 

He heard the patter of shoes hitting the court and didn’t think to turn around until he heard Rin say, cheerily, “Hey, Seijuurou! Let’s try shooting some hoops!”

 

Sei turned to see Rin happily holding a borrowed basketball above his head. Rin passed it to him and he caught it clumsily, the weight feeling unreal in his hands. He passed it back to Rin, who dribbled it towards the hoop and executed a layup. It went in. Rin caught the ball and passed it to Sei, who passed it back. "Aw, come on! Shoot, Seijuurou! It's no fun playing on my own!"

 

"I'm not good at basketball," Sei tried to excuse himself.

 

"Is it because you've never tried?" Rin passed the ball back to Sei. "Go on! Try and see!"

 

Sei tried shooting the ball at the hoop. It missed. _As expected_ , Sei thought.

 

"You're not even aiming!" Rin laughed at him. "You should aim for the corner of that square. Come here, try again."

 

Sei tried again. He missed again.

 

"I used to miss all the time too. Nobody starts off with perfect aim anyway." Rin caught the ball and passed it back. "Here, try again."

 

 _Enough_ , Sei thought. Nobody should be playing with such an incompetent as he. He passed the ball back to Rin. Rin seemed to be unaware that he had a problem, so Sei decided to tell him about it. “You shouldn’t bother with me in school, Rin."

 

Rin held onto the ball, looking unsure. "Why?"

 

"Your friends will start to avoid you." _Like they're doing now._

 

"Why would they do that?" Rin looked at Sei, eyes wide.

 

"I'm...," Sei gestured to himself. _...no one/nothing/nobody._

 

"What?" Rin blinked at him. He gestured to all of Sei, and Sei nodded. "Because? You're you?"

 

Sei frowned and shook his head. _What did Rin see?_

 

Rin's mouth hung open for a while, then he shut it, frowning. He studied the ball in his hands, thinking for a moment. "If they avoid me for such a silly thing, then,... they're not really my friends, are they?" Rin said, turning to toss the ball at the hoop. It went in. He caught the ball and passed it to Sei.

 

Sei caught the ball and held it, not understanding. _Why would Rin give up being one of the group and be with him instead?_ "Why do you want to be friends with me?" He eyed the band-aid with the smiling star on Rin’s face.

 

Rin's eyes widened. “What kind of question is that? Why _wouldn't_ I want to be friends with you?"

 

"I...," Sei fell silent for a moment. "I'm not a very good person to be friends with." It hurt to admit it, but he didn't want to cause trouble for Rin.  _It would be better to be without a friend at all, than have Rin leave after realising the problems that Sei posed._

 

"I've seen you around, you know?" Rin gestured towards the school building. "I see you're a nice person. You're not a bully. You don't cuss or steal. A bit quiet, sure, but not stuck up like some of my classmates. Our bedrooms face each other, so it must be fate for us to be friends, right?" 

 

 _Fate._ Sei had thought about it before, _wondered why about why his parents were like this, when other parents didn't seem to be like that. Why some children like Rin existed, and children like_  him  _existed,_ _and if he were someone good and perfect_ like Rin, _would his parents hate him so much..._

 

Rin's call jolted him out of his thoughts. "Why are we talking so much? Try and score, Seijuurou!"

 

Sei startled, stared hard at the corner of the painted box, then tossed the ball at the hoop. He blinked when the ball bounced off the board and went in. Rin cheered. "Way to go, Seijuurou!"

 

"It's just luck," Sei muttered. Rin caught the ball.

 

"The luckiest people are those that practise the hardest, you know? You make your own luck." Rin jumped and threw the ball at the hoop. It went in. "See? But that's not luck, it's skill. I practised hard to be able to do this. Everyone starts out with zero." He glared at Sei and Sei was taken aback by the smaller boy's fierceness. "If you want to be worth something, _you've got to work for it_." Rin looked down at the ground and whispered softly, but Sei heard it, "That's what my dad taught me."

 

Sei stared at Rin's bowed head, a painful yearning growing in his chest. That was the most inspiring thing he had ever heard. He picked up the ball, rubbing his fingertips over the pebbled surface. If he tried, if he practised,... Could he be skilled? He bit the inside of his cheek. _His father had only ever said that he was useless_.

 

Rin looked up at Sei, a sober expression on his face. Sei looked back at him and for a moment, they were just two boys on the verge of tears, even though they didn't know it of the other.

 

Then, Sei threw the ball at the hoop. It bounced off the backboard and landed in Rin's hands. "That's alright, you were close," Rin encouraged him, smiling although his voice was curiously choked up.

 

"Here, try again."

 


	4. Alone, but Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Child Abuse Sequence
> 
> Late night words and clumsy 10-year old attempts giving comfort.

Seijuurou curled up on his side in the dark and endured the new hurts that he had earned that day. His face and shoulder hurt from where they had been ground into the floor and his throat felt raw. Three new spots on his left leg burned like fire, on his inner thigh. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel his father gripping and twisting his collar, rough hands cutting off his air, holding him down. Pulling his pants down over his hips and knees to deal the burns. The inside of his head hurt a lot too, the names his father screamed at him echoing round and around with corners and edges like sharp knives.

 

Bitch.

 

Useless.

 

_Thief._

 

He should have taken note of the empty bottles by the couch, he was usually more alert than this. He had come home more tired and hungrier than usual, and had not been able to get out of his father’s way in the kitchen as he came from behind. He had stood in his father’s way for a moment too long. He had eaten too much of the bread that morning. He had not admitted to his wrongdoing quickly enough.

 

_"I'm sorry! I promise I won't do it again!"_

_Wahhhhh~~~~!_

 

_His cheek and shoulder hitting the floor, his father pressing him into the ground._

_The sharp agony of the cigarette's kiss causing him to arch against his father._

Sei trembled as he gripped his bedsheets, his breathing turning laboured, as he tried not to remember about...

_...the new moment today, where his father had flipped him on his back and sat on his legs and pushed up his shirt with the orange eye of the cigarette very, very near his face, when they heard his mother coming in through the front door._

_The next thing Sei knew, he was free._

_Sei fled back to his room, pulling at his clothes._

 

\----------------

 

Tap tap tap!

 

Sei blinked.

 

Tap tap tap!

 

Huh?

 

Tap tap tap tap tap!

 

Sei pushed himself up and looked towards the window to see someone waving at him through the glass, backlit by the light from the house next door. 

 

 _Rin,_  he thought. _Oh, it’s you._

 

He somehow pushed himself up and out of bed, the burns brushing painfully against the seam and fabric of his pants. He limped to the window and opened it. Rin stuck his shoulders and head through the window, holding the first aid kit in his hand. “Hi! I brought this for your face, Seijuurou! But what happened to you? Are you hurt?”

 

Sei clung to the window sill, trying to stand such that the cloth wouldn’t chafe his wounds. “I… sorta fell down again.”

 

Rin made a small, pained sound of dismay. “Again? You need to be more careful!”

 

“I’m alright,” Sei said, feeling anything but. He felt numb and stupid and he felt sweat beading on his forehead.

 

“You sure? You don’t look alright,” Rin said, worriedly. “Can you come out?”

 

Sei didn’t feel up to climbing over the window sill with Rin watching, but Rin continued. “I’ll go to my room and get something. You… just wait here.” He flitted over the roof and disappeared into his room again.

 

Sei stared at Rin’s window, then pushed himself carefully up. He didn’t climb so much as fall outside and he sat down with his back against the wall of his house to wait for his friend.

 

\-------------------------

 

Rin returned soon after with a small metal box. He sat down next to Seijuurou, opened it and offered its contents to Seijuurou. “Here, take one,” he said softly.

 

Sei looked down to see a whole lot of roughly cut chocolate squares. He shook his head. He didn’t want food, not now.

 

“No? Okay,” Rin covered the box and put it away. He then pulled out the first aid kit, and asked, “Can I?”

 

Sei looked at the kit and shrugged.

 

Rin knelt and pushed Sei's hair away and cleaned his cheek, and applied the ointment. After he was done, he asked, "Does your leg need this too?"

 

It probably did, but Seijuurou couldn't let Rin see the disasters that marked his legs. He looked at Rin, then looked away, shaking his head.

 

Rin made a small impatient sound and Seijuurou stiffened. Rin then took Seijuurou's hand, placing the medicine in it. "Here, take it."

 

"I can't!" Seijuurou tried to push it back but Rin took his hands back and placed them behind his back.

 

"You need it more than I do," Rin declared, looking angry as he dropped back down to sit beside Sei.

 

Sei looked at Rin so rather obviously put out about something, then down at the tube in his hand and helplessly settled back down.

 

They sat in silence for a bit.

 

"Ne, Seijuurou," Rin broke the silence first, to Sei's relief. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

 

 _Huh?_ Sei looked at Rin in surprise.

 

"We're learning about jobs and occupations in English today," Rin continued, looking up at the night sky. "Nurses, doctors, policemen..., you know!"

 

 _What do I want to be?_ Seijuurou thought for a moment and drew a blank. "I don't know," he mumbled.

 

"Eh, it's okay. Lots of people in my class don't know either," Rin shrugged. He suddenly laughed, "Yahiko, he said he wanted to be a Jaeger pilot!"

 

 _What was that?_ Sei frowned. "What do you want to be, Rin? A doctor?" he asked. _You'd be a scary one,_  he thought.

 

Rin looked at him in surprise and giggled. "Me?  A doctor? Hahaha! No, I want to be an Olympic swimmer!"

 

"An Olympic ... swimmer?" 

 

"You know, the Olympics!" Rin seemed agitated by Sei's obtuseness for once. "It's like, the greatest competition in the world!" He held out his arms, as if trying to illustrate how great it was, the universe between the span of two arms. "And I want to be good enough to swim in it!"

 

 _Oh..._ Sei recalled that Rin had won some awards in swimming. _How wonderful it must be, to be good at something and to be able to do it always_.

 

"That's nice," he murmured.

 

"I want to make my father proud of me," Rin suddenly said, looking up at the night sky again, through the gap between their roofs.

 

Seijuurou was surprised. _Surely Rin's father would be proud of him? Why would he not? But..._

 

"Me too," Sei said softly, looking up as well.  _But I don't know how..._

 

 _(Now that he thought about what he wanted, all that came to mind was his father, hugging him and telling Sei that he was loved.)_  

 

He thought of his father asleep two rooms away and could not help flinching.

 

He felt the hurts in his leg.

 

He felt a sharp pain in his heart.

  
He felt a bump on his arm and jumped a little, surprised out of his thoughts. Rin's arm was touching his, a small, warm contact from shoulder to elbow. 

 

He leaned into Rin a little, and they sat together in the night, each thinking their quiet, private thoughts. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a combination of many things.
> 
> 1) Prompt 1: this photo http://triomaxwell.tumblr.com/post/81168892343/the-cosmic-life-i-bet-that-if-two-kids-lived-in  
> Of course, the roof is longer and slightly further apart in my head.
> 
> 2) Prompt 2: Character A comes from an abusive, alcoholic, or otherwise broken home, and are often seen as no good by teachers, neighbors, and another adults; Character B comes from a seemingly perfect world: loving, well-off parents, lots of friends, many talents, possibly some siblings.
> 
> 3) Writer's block: I'm struggling with writer's block for Heartbreaker, Carpe Diem, etc. The words are not flowing right, so I cope by... writing a new and totally unrelated AU.
> 
>  
> 
> I invented my own school system, I think. You get automatically promoted to the next grade from 1st to 4th, but if you fail 4th grade, you get retained.
> 
> PS: This is not meant to bash teachers either. 
> 
> Mikoshiba will not have a sister in this AU.


End file.
